Steve hadn’t stopped for the purpose of sketching, no, he just needed some food and water to carry on his road trip. He had stopped at a big box store and marveled at the selection of fruit. Seeming, one could buy anything here. Take, for instance, the dark-haired father and son with gardening supplies. The kid who survived the Depression was endlessly amused by the bought bag of dirt and the second one of mulch. The father counted up the purchases and looked down at his son. “Are you ready, Jack?”

The boy grinned up at him and showed his hands encased in oversized gloves. He could barely hold the trowel but he was proud and ready. “Yes, Daddy. We’re going to make Mommy’s grave pretty.”

Steve couldn’t see the father’s grief, but he could feel it like a punch to the gut. “Yes, Jack, we are.”

The boy looked at the two types of flowers in his father’s cart. “I like the yellow ones but the blue ones are kinda small.”

The father lifted the indicated flowers out of the cart and held them close to his son’s face. “They’re called forget-me-nots.”

“Oh.” He thought about it. “That’s a good idea. But we don’t need a flower to help us remember.”

“True,” the father agreed.

Steve could easily image this father and son standing, not in front of a busy store but, in front of a grave ready to ‘pretty it up.’ He hurried to his motorcycle and his sketch pad there to draw his idea.

He lost himself to the art in that parking lot. The art was rough and it was obvious he didn’t have a lot of experience with a child’s proportions, but Steve still felt the punch to the gut when he saw the smiling child, the serious father and the gravestone in the background that read ‘Beloved Mother.’